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Pathar Ke Insaan(ity) (1990)

Against an epic backdrop of one-sided sibling rivalry, rock-em sock-em lumberjack action, bizarro world medical pronouncements, ham-fisted Mahabharata references, unrequited puppy-love, puffy sleeves and big-budget musical excess lies a plot which I will mostly let speak for itself through screenshots, because all it left me with were questions.

Questions like: Why is Vinod Khanna in this film? Why is Saeed Jaffrey in this film? Why is anybody in this film? Why does this film exist at all? How did the actors keep their faces straight through their dialogues? How old were the people who wrote this, anyway? Were they even out of grade school yet? And above all, will I ever make it all the way through?!

Wealthy businessman Balwant Rai (Saeed Jaffrey) hires tree-hurling figure Arjun (Vinod Khanna) as his manager after Arjun saves him from being robbed—despite having been unfairly fired days earlier from his factory job by Rai Sahab over a misunderstanding.

Rai tells new best friend Arjun the sad tale of his family’s history: he survived a plane crash which killed his wife and caused his father to die of shock on hearing the news—after he rewrote his will, leaving all his wealth to his two orphaned (he thought) granddaughters, with family doctor Prashant (Om Shivpuri) as trustee.

Rai Sahab’s not-orphaned heiress daughters Lata (Sridevi) and Sita (Poonam Dhillon) grow up warring over that age-old crucial debate: is song more important than dance? The argument is settled once and for all in the most hallowed of filmi settings, the “All India Music Competition.”

Dance, being represented by Sridevi, wins! Extremely poor loser Sita drives off in a huff, killing an innocent pedestrian in her rage and self-pity. She jumps off a cliff after cursing her sister.

Lata is now kept locked in a room upstairs in the Rai haveli, because afterwards she is went insane…OR DID SHE?

Arjun attacks Lata in her room. When she screams for help and he is caught by Rai Sahab, Doctor Prashant and old family friend and valiant police officer Karan (Jackie Shroff), Arjun explains.

Huh? What will the actual medical professional in the room have to say?

Oh, make it stop! At least Karan looks like he gets how stupid this is.

*Memsaab covers her eyes*

He anyway has an excuse for his misplaced optimism—we already know he’s been in love with Lata since childhood, but has never had the courage to express his feelings except through Prom Night musical fantasies.

(Who can’t love the pink post-it note dress, although unfortunately yes, Sri, it does make you look fat.)

Psychobabbler Arjun takes Lata out for some fresh air and dancing and brings her back all cured.

…OR IS SHE?

Her elated father throws her a birthday party, where she goes berserk with the cake knife, cutting poor Karan’s love-token-offering hand.

Later, she cuts her own hand (in remorse? or because the mirrored prison she lives in is torturing her?). (Seriously, should someone who is mad be surrounded by walls of mirrors? Questions, only questions!):

*What to do, what to do?*

Idea!

Because the Germans are such great arbiters of sanity, Rai Sahab thinks this a splendid idea and decides that Arjun will be the perfect groom for Lata; and the otherwise brave Karan fails once again to elaborate on his own feelings.

Doh!!!

I get the distinct impression (subtlety not being one of this movie’s hallmarks) that Lata may need guarding; during the wedding ceremony her new husband wears a grim face and flashes back to a funeral pyre.

And Karan’s disappointed Ma (she had fondly hoped to have Lata as her own bahu) generously provides some backup for her son.

He’s going to need it, too. As Moon Moon Sen gyrates with backup dancers in black/green face in a bar:

Arjun meets up with an old dushman Mahesh (from whom he had saved Rai Sahab at the beginning of this interminable film) and Doctor Prashant—trustee of Lata’s wealth.

What is the connection between these three? Why are they hand-in-sinister-black-glove(s) with each other? Is Sita really dead? Can this film get any worse? I can’t honestly tell you, because at this point in the proceedings, I am interrupted to go out for dinner with some friends. I tell them about the story thus far, and they stare at me.

Finally, my friend Pratiksha (who is a real doctor) says in a grave tone: “I don’t think you should watch any more of this.”

I think she may be right. While it isn’t generally my habit to write up films I haven’t watched in their entirety, even if I don’t go any further with this one I feel compelled to share, mostly in the hope that it will now be purged from my system. In any case, I think we can all seewhere it is going. Plus, I have a great many more films stacked up in a ginormous to-watch pile, and many of them must be better than this, right?

RIGHT?

Oh, and if you are wondering why I even embarked on this madness (made, I might add, by Kajol-father-Tanuja-husband Shomu Mukherjee), it had something to do with Sridevipalooza and Beth, and my wish to escape all the seriousness around here lately.

And maybe Vinod.

Updated to add (with SPOILERS): For reasons probably best kept to myself (not that I keep anything to myself!) I decided that I needed to see the rest of this. Sigh. Let this serve as a warning to others!

As Amrita says in her comment below (thanks Amrita—bless you for having seen it too, I don’t feel quite so alone in my stupidity, hee), Arjun’s sister was the girl killed by Sita’s poor driving on the day she lost the All India Music Competition to Lata. Arjun overhears a bystander telling Doctor Prashant (he and Rai Sahab have also followed the two girls, but they stop at the accident scene) that the driver was Rai’s daughter, although he doesn’t specify which, and everyone for some reason assumes it was Lata.

Prashant comes to see Arjun at his sister’s funeral pyre, and they formulate the plot by which Arjun will get his revenge by killing Lata and Prashant will inherit all her wealth as her trustee (ginormous plot hole here as Lata has now come of age and it’s her money, so after marrying Arjun she rewrites her will so that he inherits everything and should “God forbid” Arjun die too, Prashant will inherit; I have to wonder why she’s leaving her poor Dad—whose money it should have been in the first place and who is sitting there next to her—completely out of it, but never mind).

Arjun marries (still crazy) Lata, and pushes her off the cliff that her sister jumped from. Karan investigates her “suicide” and cleverly deduces from the giant Arjun-sized shoe-prints and cigarette butts left on the scene that Arjun killed her. Lata doesn’t die though, and is rescued by some fisher women—but the knock on her head from the fall has restored her memory and her sanity (this last is debatable to me, but that’s the general assumption). She doesn’t appear to remember that Arjun pushed her off the cliff though, and she acts as lovingly towards him as a good wife should. Arjun seizes an opportunity to take her to a Kali Maa puja, where he plans to kill her at the temple. On the way they pass the place where his sister had died, and Lata remembers the accident. She makes him stop the car and asks the vendor there if the girl survived; he tells her no, and that the girl’s brother went mad with grief.

She is very upset to hear this, and tells Arjun about it all. He is stunned to realize that Lata did not kill his sister, but Sita did. He tells Lata that he will take her home, and she asks him if he is not going to kill her after all. She has remembered that he pushed her off the cliff, but because (*stupidity climax here*) he is her husband she is willing to let him kill her if he wants to, although she wants to know why first. I bash my head against the arms of my chair but sadly remain conscious and the film rolls on. He tells her who he is, proclaims his love and she is justly rewarded for her sterling womanly qualities.

Prashant in the meantime has sent his goons after them: they are to kill Arjun after he kills Lata. Bwaaahahahaaa, etc. Karan has convinced Lata’s father that Arjun wants to kill her, and they are also in hot pursuit of the pair. At the puja Arjun saves Lata from Prashant’s goons and himself is fighting with Prashant when Karan arrives with Rai Sahab. Prashant convinces them that Arjun is trying to kill him and Lata both and while Karan and Arjun fight he takes off with Lata as his prisoner. There is a lot of fast-forwarding on my part and eventually Karan realizes that Prashant is the bad guy, not Arjun, and they band together to defeat Prashant. Lata is rescued and tearfully reunited with her husband, and Karan and Arjun vow to be BFFs forever, and then pointlessly and needlessly Prashant appears intact out of his exploded burning vehicle and kills Karan before being killed by Arjun.

I am amazed that you made it this far! The very presence of Sridevi usually means the film is no good, usually because you are in the WRONG Bolly-decade (Mr. India is the only exception to this rule). And Vinod Khanna looks like he left all his yumminess behind with Osho! :(

He was still yummy, at least by my own aged standards ;-) But seriously, the dialogue was written by 8 year olds or something, and nobody else really ever showed up for work. Except maybe Poonam for her suicide scene at the beginning, but she probably should have stayed at home.

I am really, really intrigued! It’s so shiny! But sounds so bad! But Vinod! And a lie detector! And gloved hands (I saw quite a few of those during Neetu Week)! Wow! I hope someone will post what happens, at least enough for us to discern how bad Arjun really is.

Why is anybody in this film? Why does this film exist at all? How did the actors keep their faces straight through their dialogues?

But you killed me with:

Rai Sahab’s not-orphaned heiress daughters Lata (Sridevi) and Sita (Poonam Dhillon) grow up warring over that age-old crucial debate: is song more important than dance? The argument is settled once and for all in the most hallowed of filmi settings, the “All India Music Competition.”

Wah! Mazaa aa gayaa! Excellent, excellent review. Kudos to you for having gone through all that painful torture! But Jean-Claude above, I am now filled with a morbid and strange urge to watch the movie in order to find out the ending. Thank heavens that I have no access to it in any way, shape or form!! :D

Don’t know why, but Sridevi went on a signing spree opposite Vinod Khanna around the time this movie was released. Chandni (1989) and Farishtay (1991) were the others.

I remember Jackie Shroff and Sridevi had won Filmfare awards for Parinda and Chaalbaaz (both 1989) respectively. The publicity around this movie was something like ‘Watch the winners of best actor and best actress together in this movie’.

Can you believe Sridevi was cast opposite Dharmendra in Naaka Bandi (1990)? This was after she was the leading lady for his son – Sunny Deol – in just the previous couple of years. Thankfully her films with Jeetendra had dried up around this time and hence she didn’t act opposite any other ‘uncles’ :-)

The affair with Jeetendra seems a pretty sure thing actually…I don’t know about Vinod (I just have a vague impression of Sridevi moving from “uncle” to “uncle” throughout the 80s), but honestly I don’t much care, my collection of vintage Stardust magazines notwithstanding :D

I’d vindicate Shomu Mukherjee because he did make the fun ‘Chhaila Babu’ (1977) with Rajesh and Zeenat though it’s goodness, for those who can see it, ;-) may be attributable to cousin Joy who directed it.

Would you believe I have not only seen this movie but I sat through it to the end? I will tell you what you missed:

***SPOILER (like you care)***
So when Sri and Poonam were having their mad sister-off, Vinod was out shopping wedding sarees with his little sister. While his back is turned, his sister decides to go walkabout right to the middle of the street and gets run over by Poonam, who doesn’t even pause because things like manslaughter are below the considerations of an artiste. Sri follows, sees the accident and stops for a second, and looks over her shoulder. Vinod, holding the corpse of his sister, looks up right that second and sees her but before he can say anything, Sri speeds off because she’s got a mad sister to catch. Vinod thus decides Sri is his sister’s killer. But then he realizes she’s nuts now so he needs to cure her first so she KNOWS why she’s dying. Finally Sri is cured and they go off on some trip to a temple (?) and Vinod is all “Muahahaha! Revenge is mine any second!” when Sri poops all over his grand plans by telling him she knows he’s here to murder her and to go ahead but first tell her why. So he says, “Yer dun kilt mah sistah! Grrr!” and she says “NOOOOOOOOO! It was that other freak!” and then he feels like an idiot and turns out they love each other. Then the bad guys show up and Vinod beats them all up and twue wuv is declared the winnah!

You forgot the most importantly stupid part (at least for me)!!!! I am sad to say that in the end I needed to see it all so that I could put it aside forever…think I will add it as my own spoiler above, but am thanking you very much for your entertaining one!

I feel your pain sister because I share your affliction. :D You’re right, I’d completely blanked on her asking him to off her coz that was part of the wedding vows apparently. WHO COULD BLAME ME?

In all this, I completely forgot the comment I meant to write before your post sucked me in but this reminds me – I think this is a remake of sorts of a Rakhee movie in which she plays this insane heiress who is married by a stranger played by Vijay Arora (with many a side glance and squinty look) whose evil plan is to kill her once they’re alone together so he can have all her money. I don’t remember if he does it straight up for the money or if he has Deep Secrets Buried in His Manly Bosom a la Vinod here.

I do remember that at some point she turns to him and says, “I know you want to kill me and it’s ok because you’re my husband” the same way Sri does. Hindi heroines apparently all went to the same school of stupid.

Does anybody remember this movie? I never saw it in full and the little I saw was when I was a child so I just remember random things like the extremely bad print and the two of them trudging through forests. And a scene in front of a fireplace in one of those hunting lodge type thingies (dark with lots of wood paneling and hunting trophies on the wall) which is where Rakhee lives in this movie.

I remember this movie from yet another DD afternoon show, and even my 14 year old self could not watch this charade after Vinod got married. Easy to guess what happens: Vinods family was wronged, and he was out to take revenge in the most believable of ways, he would at some point start to have some feelings for Sri, but Jackie would somehow find it out, and then save poor Sri, while Vinod would die before giving an hour long monologue and may be killing a few just for the fun.

Hey didn’t SRK starrer Baazigar had a similar storyline including sisters, one dead sister, a police inspector pining for the sister who marries the revengeful hero, the hero having his revenge and dying while giving a monologue? Or Im getting too excited here?

Your outline would work if Vinod and Sri were not MARRIED. Marriage results in its own storylines that are even more insane (if that is even possible). There is no saving or re-pairing for the leading lady after a wedding (more precisely, after *ahem* deed is done), at least before 90s.

In Baazigar, they were only ‘engaged’ and so, revengeful hero could be killed off.

Anyway, in response to Violet, in “Deewana,” you have a woman (unintentionally) commit bigomy and not die. That’s probably about as progressive as BW gets.

Even to this day BW heroines can’t seem to back out marriages in movies. The only exception is Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna- but I think it would’ve been more compelling if it took place in an Indian setting as opposed to NY (which seemed like a cop-out to me).

Sri’s face with such an innocent expression at the top of page makes up for the whole insanity of the movie. I feel for poor Sri during that period. She was very much her mamma’s girl and was quite lost after her mom passed away.

After 70s, eighties and nineties were a terrible two decades in the history of Bollywood. This and its such other films are shining examples of Bollywood gone bankrupt…In fact your own blog has very little reviews of movies that were released then and; speaking for myself, I had completely stopped seeing Hindi movies then and had switched over to hollywood and regional language films in Kannada , Tamil etc then…

I can’t watch more than one or two films from these two decades every six months or so…although ironically when I first started watching Hindi movies most of the ones I saw were from the 90s (I started watching them seriously in about 2003 or so). And I still continued to watch them!

I know, I know..Like you I love 70s and sixties movies a lot…
The great songs, the delectable heroes and beautiful heroines, the masala..certainly 70s were the golden age of entertaining Hindi Cinema for me…That’s what I love about your blog..You have reviewed so many of them here….

I haven’t seen this film, I did not even know it existed but am I glad this film was made, why? Well because this film was made,Memsaab reviewed it and I got to read this gem ‘questions like: Why is Vinod Khanna in this film? Why is Saeed Jaffrey in this film? Why is anybody in this film? Why does this film exist at all? How did the actors keep their faces straight through their dialogues? How old were the people who wrote this, anyway—were they out of grade school yet? And above all, will I ever make it all the way through?!’ Wow what a way to put it. Lord knows I have gone through countless films with exactly these thoughts going through my mind only difference you expressed it so well. I have had a real good laugh.

I have added a synopsis of the end in excruciating detail above if you are interested in finding out what happened (although Amrita’s less lengthy synopsis in the comments here is more than adequate as well). Please take it as a public service and if you insist on seeing the film anyway it is purely at your own risk. You have been fairly warned.

Can I just say at the risk of seriously ticking off her umpteen fans, how irritating I find Sridevi? That little girl voice grates, that fake nose screams bad rhinoplasty (she was cute before so why?), and she had the misfortune of being part of a really bad era. But at the same time, I can’t keep my eyes off her when she’s on screen during the songs and dances though her jinks with a white attired Jeetu and a Rajesh with a discernible belly and balding pate :-( are truly unforgettable and not in a good way. Perhaps because I was supremely uninterested in the younger 80s actors, I may have missed out on her good stuff (not counting how good she was in a few of her Tamil films with Kamal Haasan for instance, etc.). Sorry.

Sometimes I comfort myself for being born a gori and not discovering Hindi cinema until it was WAY too late to be a heroine (or preferably vamp) myself by remembering that I would have been an actress IN THE 80s, a contemporary of poor Sridevi. I like her when she isn’t playing a “mad” person (oh so irritating that was), but vive la difference! :)

I haven’t thought Sridevi was any good as an actress. The best roles she had (her earlier ones in Telugu/Tamil as innocent and naive girl) were all close to what she can do and she can’t do anything else outside that mode.

But she was so great to watch on screen. Especially, when paired with good dancers.

Memsaab, watch Sridevi with kamala hasan in the tamil film “Moonram Perai” – the original version of the hindi “sadma” and you will have an idea about her talent. Also one of her earliest tamil movies “16 vaidenelai” also remade in hindi as “solva saal”. I don’t think the hindi versions could capture the same essence as the original tamil ones. In hindi films, Sridevi was good in Mr India, Lamhe and Chandini. Others are really forgettable ones.

Like I’ve said before, I love it when you see crappy movies. Your review then is almost always even more of a delight to read than your usual review (which is anyway a delight).

Brave of you to sit through this. Public service to all of us indeed. :-)

What is it about movies of that period that even quality actors like Sridevi and Vinod Khanna just cannot make you want to sit through them?

I tend to think that movies of that period were made in a hurry – with as many standard ingredients thrown in as possible. I remember a Prakash Mehra movie with Amitabh made around that time – Jadugar. One of the worst movies I have ever seen. Have you seen it? If not, I would highly recommend it. ;-) (*rubbing hands in glee in anticipation of review-to-follow*).

An interesting point you bring up in this movie is how Lata reacts because Arjun is her husband. It irritates the hell out of me when a wife suddenly goes into “mera pati mera devta hai” (my husband is my lord) mode, when the said hubby has not reciprocated with any respect whatsoever. It has happened in plenty of movies – and is probably the biggest requirement in movies for a “bharatiya naari”. Perhaps this is the single biggest reason I just loved Shabana in Arth. One of the best movies of the decade. Not that it had much competition. :-)

HAHAHAHAHA! I’ve seen this piece of junk too and hysterical laughter is the only possible response to it. Baby, love me baby….damn, this is going to play in my head all day now. Curse you, Beeper Lady!

I came back to read how it end because I was so, so intrigued how bad it could be. I am speechless that the film killed off the consistently noble police officer in favor of the swine husband. I guess I shouldn’t be, given that poor Sri was knowingly going to let that same husband kill her. What are we supposed to take away from this: better a greedy, vengeful, murdering married guy EVEN WHEN YOU MARRIED UNDER FALSE PRETENSES than an upstanding, loyal single person?

I kept scribbling on my notepad: “Can it get stupider?” and THEN IT WOULD.

What I took away from it is that it was made by people with no education and severely stunted emotional growth, who had grown up on a diet of Bhartiya Naari movies with no imagination or ability to think for themselves beyond that. What these actors were doing in it is beyond my comprehension.

I’m with Raja. Please continue to watch, review, and spoil for us as many bad movies as your sanity will allow you. As it is, not only, a joy to look at, but is probably one of my greatest reading sources. So if you stop, my literacy skills will go down. =(

90´s bollywood is only good for Anil Kapoor and Madhuri´s movies.Anil kapoor my best hero from childhood days.All other stars where giving 1 hit and 6 flops like Aamir khan one movie Dil (june 22,1990)superhit than deewana mujh sa nahi,afsana pyar ka,jawaani zindabad,dulat ki jung etc.Sunny deol Ghayal(june22,1990) superhit than flop vishdu deva,vishvatmaa,shankara,yodha,majboor etc.Vinod never gave and super duper hit movie after his come back.Even big B was giving flops in 90´s.There was one another movie Garjana starring VInod khanna ,sri and RIshi kapoor this movie never released only audio was out.

I like this movie for the surreal dance-off between Poonam and Sri (I HAD to see it for them). But I couldn’t understand the crappy role Jackie got- he was too pretty to be wasted like that! Poonam’s bit was also a bit short- I’d like to have seen more rivalry between her and Sri- which I guess would kill the story line (what story line- yeah I know) :D

You review is some serious laugh out loud fun. As I write this, I am searching for a tissue to wipe the tears streaming from my face.

My two cents in answer to your question ‘Why is Vinod Khanna in this film?’: the pushing-Sridevi-off-a-cliff scene leads me to believe it was to exact pure and simple revenge for the last minute mandap switch in Chandni. And seriously, who could blame him? I mean why would you willingly trade our man of stone for the sideburns-less uncle in the inexplicably colourful fuzzy sweaters and very, very mean saas?

Going thru’ ur blog alphabetically. Have been tempted to comment earlier but was unable to restrain myself this time after reading the line – “I bash my head against the arms of my chair but sadly remain conscious and the film rolls on.” Now I know why such movies are made. So that u can watch them, review them and give all the adoring (u not the movies) public can get laughs even out of Stoned Insanity.

Hey Greta, I fear its already 3 years too late, but God bless you for (a) sitting through this torture and (b) surviving to tell the tale. Your survival skills are almost comparable to Anastas Mikoyan’s.